Westinghouse later offered a compromise to the FCC, offering to have them get the channel 13 license for the proposed KDKA-TV and have them "share" the frequency with WQED. Considered unacceptable to Hazard, he called Westinghouse CEOGwilym Price to ask him if he should give up on his fight for public television. Price said that Hazard should keep fighting for it, giving Westinghouse backing for the future WQED. Westinghouse even donated to Hazard the tower Westinghouse had purchased had it gotten the channel 13 license, making way for WQED to sign on April 1, 1954. The station's call letters, Q.E.D., are taken from the Latin phrase, quod erat demonstrandum (what had to be proved or what was to be demonstrated), commonly used in mathematics.[1]

Westinghouse would not have to wait much longer for its own television station in Pittsburgh, though. Knowing that DuMont needed WDTV's cash flow to get its programming cleared in larger markets but also needed a short-term cash infusion after DuMont investor Paramount Pictures vetoed a merger between DuMont and ABC – which itself had just merged with United Paramount Theaters, Westinghouse offered DuMont a then-record $10 million for WDTV, which DuMont promptly accepted in January 1955. Westinghouse immediately changed the call sign from WDTV to KDKA-TV, making it a sister station to radio station KDKA. DuMont was not able to get clearance in larger markets and was out of business by the end of 1956. Although KDKA-TV is now owned by Westinghouse successor CBS Corporation (as a CBSowned-and-operated station) as a result of various mergers, the station still retains a close relationship with WQED as a result of Westinghouse helping to get WQED on the air.[2]

During its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, WQED was a vital supplier of programming to the national PBS system. For 15 years, WQED produced the National Geographic Specials for the National Geographic Society. These programs, among others, and the craftspeople who produced them, won numerous Emmy Awards and other accolades, including Peabody Awards.

Over the years, talent like Michael Keaton, who worked behind the scenes on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, emerged from the station and went on to national fame. During its heyday, WQED also supported a post production office and editing facility in Los Angeles. Known as QED/West, the satellite was the editing center for much of WQED's national programming.

During the beginning of the 1990s, WQED faltered on a national level as the rapidly changing media landscape shifted. The downturn was exacerbated by a scandal in which top executives were discovered to have been augmenting their personal revenues without informing the Board of Directors. This period was chronicled in the 2000 book, Air Wars: The Fight to Reclaim Public Broadcasting by Jerrold M. Starr.

The problems continued with a failed attempt to sell WQED's auxiliary station, WQEX (channel 16), outright in 1999. In 2002, WQEX's non-commercial educational status was removed, and the station would move to an all-shopping format, first with America's Store and later with ShopNBC. In November 2010, WQED reached a deal to sell WQEX to Ion Media Networks for $3 million. The sale was consummated (after FCC approval) on May 2, 2011, at which time the station's call sign changed from WQEX to WINP-TV.[3][4]

WQED's employees are historically a tight knit group. Longtime sound man and Ohio University professor, John "Bear" Butler, maintains an active e-mail distribution list in which news about the members of WQED's community is updated regularly.

WQED shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 13, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 38 to VHF channel 13.[7] This made WQED the only full-powered station in the Pittsburgh market to move its digital signal back to its analog-era channel position. Former sister station WINP-TV took over WQED's former digital channel 38, broadcasting on virtual channel 16.1.